A Writer's Tale

As with Savage, I realized that the concept itself was so nifty that I had to give it a try. If I blew it, I blew it. Better to try and fail, than not to try… Here is a quote from a letter that I wrote to Bob Tanner:

Body Rides seemed like a very exciting concept for a novel, one full of possibilities for visiting unusual characters, getting involved in odd events, and exploring many diminsions of human experience.

Having a magic bracelet allowing such excursions would open up whole new realms of experiences for a person.

If you could “body ride,” you could be anyone at least for a while.

And safely, for the most part.

But when you do enter someone, what do you find?

One of my main challenges in writing Body Rides was dealing with the questions: What goes on in someone, really?

I wanted to reach behind the way that fiction usually treats the minds of characters. As we know or suspect people don’t think simply by having verbal discussions with themselves. A lot of other stuff goes on.

Our heads, it seems to me, are packed with a jumble of conscious thoughts, monologues, vague notions, images that float through, mind-films of memories, worries and fantasies, projections of possible future events, and always an awareness of the body its activities and physical sensations.

Though I’m fairly well read, I’d never encountered a book that described the minds of characters functioning in the way my own mind seems to function. That is, with such an array of stuff happening simultaneously on different levels. As far as I knew, I was breaking new ground. I had nowhere to look for guidance except into myself. I wondered if I would be good enough to recreate, in a believable way, what I found there.

And, actually, I wasn’t totally sure that everyone experiences the same kind of stuff I do.

I reckoned they likely did.

Hey, I was counting on it.

To do my research for Body Rides, I didn’t read psychology books. I have no idea what they might’ve told me. I simply looked into myself and paid attention.

And hoped for the best.

Apparently, I got it pretty near right.

Like Quake, Body Rides tells a lot of truth about life in Southern California.

It opens with the main character, Neal Darden, making a late-night run to the video store.

(His last name was intended as a tribute to Christopher Darden, a prosecutor in the trial of OJ. Simpson.) In Neal’s attempt to return the rented video to the store before midnight, he travels exactly the same route that I (and my family) have driven many times at the same hour.

And he thinks many of the same thoughts that have crossed my mind.

The tunnel is there. The strip of wilderness below the freeway is there. So is the video store (really a Blockbuster) and the fast-food joint (really an In and Out). The murders that Neal thinks about well, they were real, too.

A lot is real in Body Rides.

The portrayals of Los Angeles, Brentwood, Santa Monica. The sounds of gunshots being ignored in the night. The bums and weirdos roaming the alleys. Nearly every detail about life in Southern California, including most of the street names.

What isn’t real?

Plenty.

I should mention that The Fort is entirely a figment of my imagination. Its location is based on an area I’ve visited, but there is no amusement park in the vicinity. The Fort seems like a pretty neat place, to me. If it existed, I would sure want to go there. But it doesn’t. Only in Body Rides.

I finished writing Body Rides on September 27, 1995.

Mike Bailey, my editor at Headline, wrote, “Just finished Body Rides wow! It’s a trip and a half but we’ve doubtless already talked so you’ll know I think it’s great and your readers will just adore it.”

Headline published Body Rides in February, 1996. It was the main selection of the World Book Club and the Mystery and Thriller Book Club. The book club editions numbered 42,000 copies nearly doubling the amount they printed of Quake or Island.

BITE

On October 17, 1995, I sat down at my computer. Here are some of the notes I made: I’m now done with Body Rides and it has been accepted. Have also written my vampire story for Poppy Brite’s anthology. Now is the time to come up with an idea for a new novel.

How about something truly noir-ish?

I toyed earlier with the idea of a guy being approached by a beautiful gal to help her with a dead vampire. In earlier version, she was an old girlfriend. This could be like a companion piece to The Stake.

She comes to him. Tells him that she needs his help. Then she leads him to the scene of the crime a dead man with a stake through his chest. She confesses that she did it.

Says that he was a vampire. But the cops won’t believe that. They’ll try to nail her for murder. So she asks his help in getting rid of the body.

As in notes for other novels, such as Body Rides, I refer to an earlier version of the idea.

Here is what happened.